Washington, DC – A dozen conservative leaders from across America delivered a letter to former Reagan Administration Attorney General Edwin Meese today asking him to withdraw his support for GOP pro-Ground Zero mosque candidate David Ramadan who is running for the Virginia House of Delegates.

The letter (see attached) was circulated by the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force (VAST), a citizens group which has opposed the radical Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia and joined others in the fight to halt the development of the Ground Zero mosque in New York.

The letter cites disparities between Mr. Meese’s long-established conservative views and the radical views espoused and supported by Ramadan, a first-time candidate from Loudoun County who has made huge donations to prominent Republican officials.

The letter urges Meese to withdraw his support until the disparities have been explained adequately and until Ramadan answers other questions which he has up-until-now refused to address publicly.

It is signed by 12 prominent conservative leaders who oppose efforts to introduce counter-Constitutional Shariah in American culture and law.
The signers are VAST Chairman James Lafferty, Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney, Geraldine Davie, mother of a victim of the World Trade Center attack; Pamela Geller, a leading opponent of the Ground Zero Mosque; Robert Spencer, author and terrorism expert; Traditional Values Coalition President Andrea Lafferty; Government is Not God PAC Chairman William Murray; Annie Hamilton, President, Hamilton Research; Carol A. Taber, President, Family Security Matters.org; Andy Miller, Chairman, Tennessee Freedom Coalition ; Robert Heier, Director, Society for the Prevention of Islamic Radicalism in the USA and Tom Trento, President, THE UNITED WEST.

As you know, a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates, David Ramadan, announced this week that you have endorsed his candidacy. We are concerned about a number of outstanding and potentially troubling questions that Mr. Ramadan has not yet satisfactorily addressed. We respectfully suggest that, unless and until such answers are forthcoming, that you may not have the requisite information to judge his candidacy. Indeed, no one other than Mr. Ramadan himself does – and he refuses to disclose such information to the voting public.

For example, Mr. Ramadan insists that he is a staunch conservative and Republican, but his advocacy on behalf of the Ground Zero mosque and his close relationship with the lobbying firm for Muammar Qadaffi’s Libya suggest otherwise.

On August 17, 2010, Mr. Ramadan signed a joint letter with others who purport to be Republicans, but act like Islamist activists. (It was included in a story on that same day in the New York Times.)The letter stated, “…It perplexes us as to why some vocal members of our party have chosen to oppose the construction of a cultural and religious center on private grounds. Not only does the First Amendment to our Constitution protect the right of these private citizens to worship freely, it also prevents Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion. Our party and the leaders in our party should not be engaged in judgment issues of the location of the cultural center and a house of worship in direct contravention of the First Amendment.”

The day before, in an interview with the left-wing Huffington Post, Mr. Ramadan said, “People like myself…who are hardcore Republicans and have been activists for years, with undoubted credentials on the Republican side, are really outraged by what is going on. We believe first and foremost in the Constitution. This is not a matter of this mosque or that mosque. This is not a New York mosque issue. It is a Constitutional issue… This [opposition to the Ground Zero mosque] is absolutely unacceptable.”
Yet, when Mr. Ramadan announced his candidacy on April 14, 2011, he denied ever supporting the Ground Zero mosque. When challenged on that point, he called the charge that he had endorsed its construction as “hateful and false political attacks.” He went so far as to issue a flier (“Paid for and authorized by David Ramadan for House of Delegates”) entitled “The Facts About David Ramadan,” which followed a fiction-versus-fact format:

“Claim: David Ramadan is a proponent of the mosque to be built on Ground Zero in New York City.

“FACT: False. David Ramadan is not a proponent and has never advocated the building of the mosque in New York.”

At a minimum, we need to know: Is a candidate who would seemingly dissemble about such a well-documented position be someone we can trust?

Another subject of concern is Mr. Ramadan’s advertised “strategic alliance” with Fahmy Hudome International, a firm that Bloomberg Business Week reported on October 23, 2006, “played a role in efforts to remove Libya from the U.S. terrorist list.” Most conservatives at the time regarded such a step as unwarranted and ill-advised. That is even more clearly the case today. We are entitled to know: Did Mr. Ramadan believe that the Libyan dictatorship responsible for the murderous destruction of Pan Am 103 was not a state-sponsor of terrorism? Also, does Mr. Ramadan still support the Gaddafi regime?

There appear to be a host of other questions arising from the public record here and in the Middle East, where Mr. Ramadan conducts the bulk of his business ventures.

On November 30, 1994 (right before finishing his Master’s degree in December, 1994), David Ramadan reportedly filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. The bankruptcy discharged 23 consumer credit accounts for a total of nearly $28,000.

Yet, Mr. Ramadan’s campaign materials boast that he “completed graduate studies at Oxford University (Oxford, England), the American Graduate School of Business (Geneva, Switzerland), Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD) and Georgetown University (Washington, DC).” It seems reasonable to inquire: How he could afford to get four graduate certificates shortly after he declared bankruptcy?

On December 30, 1994, a marriage license was applied for and a marriage certificate was granted to Imad Afif Ramadan (a name Mr. Ramadan sometimes uses) and Ghanda Abdul-Rahman Zoghbi. This is not the woman that David Ramadan claims to be married to today. There appears to be no public record of a divorce between Mr. Ramadan and Ms. Zoghbi. What is his actual marital status?

Imad Afif Ramadan became David-Imad Ramadan and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen. On the occasion of his naturalization, he took an oath of citizenship – as does everyone who becomes a naturalized citizen – that includes these words: “I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same[.]”

Subsequently, David-Imad Ramadan reportedly signed a published petition “…DEMAND[ING] THE RIGHT TO VOTE AS CITIZENS OF LEBANON” after he took the oath of American citizenship. Is he, in fact, still a citizen of Lebanon?

These are just a few of the questions that have been put to Mr. Ramadan to which he refuses to respond. We are concerned that his failure may amount to an effort to obscure a personal history and policy positions that would be problematic for most conservatives – and an embarrassment to those associated with him. At a minimum, it seems that Mr. Ramadan is trying to win a political campaign by pretending to be something he is not: a conservative.
We urge you to reconsider your support for this individual at least until such time as these and other outstanding questions about his record, judgment and conduct are fully satisfied.